From Pole to Pole | Page 3

and over a sea which has witnessed many wonderful
exploits and marvellous adventures. Among the wreckage and
fragments at its bottom sleep vikings and other heroes who fought for
their country; but to-day peace reigns over the Baltic, and Swedes,
Danes, Russians, and Germans share in the harvest of the sea. Yet still,
as of yore, the autumn storms roll the slate-grey breakers against the
shores; and still on bright summer days the blue waves glisten, silvered
by the sun.
Four hours fly past all too quickly, and before we have become
accustomed to the level expanses of the sea a strip of land appears to
starboard. This is Rügen, the largest island of Germany, lifting its white
chalk cliffs steeply from the sea, like surf congealed into stone. The
ferry-boat swings round in a beautiful curve towards the land, and in
the harbour of Sassnitz its rails are fitted in exactly to the railway track
on German soil. We hasten to take our seats in the carriages, for in a
few minutes the German engine comes up and draws the train on to the
land of Rügen.
The monotonous grind of iron on iron begins again, and the coast and
the ferry-boat vanish behind us. Rügen lies as flat as a pancake on the
Baltic Sea, and the train takes us through a landscape which reminds us
of Sweden. Here grow pines and spruces, here peaceful roe-deer jump
and roam about without showing the slightest fear of the noise of the
engine and the drone of the carriages.
Another ferry takes us over the narrow sound which separates Rügen
from the mainland, and we see through the window the towers and
spires and closely-packed houses of Stralsund. Every inch of ground
around us has once been Swedish. In this neighbourhood Gustavus

Adolphus landed with his army, and in Stralsund Charles XII. passed a
year of his adventurous life.
In the twilight the train carries us southwards through Pomerania, and
before we reach Brandenburg the autumn evening has shrouded the
North German lowland in darkness. The country is flat and
monotonous; not a hill, hardly even an insignificant mound, rises above
the level expanse. Yet the land has a peculiar attraction for the stranger
from Sweden. He thinks of the time when Swedish gun-carriages
splashed and dashed through the mud before the winter frost made their
progress still more difficult and noisy. He thinks of heroic deeds and
brave men, of early starts, and horses neighing with impatience at the
reveille; of victories and honourable peaces, and of the captured flags at
home.
If he is observant he will find many other remembrances in the North
German low country. Boulders of Swedish granite lie scattered over the
plain. They stand out like milestones and mark the limits of the
extension of the Scandinavian inland ice. During a colder period of the
world's history all northern Europe was covered with a coat of ice, and
this period is called the Ice Age. No one knows why the ice embraced
Scandinavia and the adjacent countries and swept in a broad stream
over the Baltic Sea. And no one knows why the climate afterwards
became warmer and drier, and forced the ice to melt away and
gradually to leave the ground bare. But we know for a fact that the
boulders in northern Germany were carried there on the back of an
immense ice stream, for they are composed of rocks which occur only
in Scandinavia. The ice tore them away from the solid mountains;
during its slow movement southwards it carried them with it, and when
it melted the blocks were left on the spot.
At last points of light begin to flash by like meteors in the night. They
become more and more numerous, and finally come whole rows and
clusters of electric lamps and lighted windows. We are passing through
the suburbs of a huge city, one of the largest in the world and the third
largest in Europe--Berlin.
BERLIN

If we spread out on the table a map of Europe on which all the railways
are indicated by black lines, the map will look like a net with irregular
meshes. At all the knots are towns, large centres of population which
are in constant communication with one another by means of the
railways. If we fix our eyes on North Germany, we see what looks like
an enormous spider's web, and in the middle of it sits a huge spider.
That spider is called Berlin. For as a spider catches its prey in an
ingeniously spun net, so Berlin by its railways draws to itself life and
movement not only from Germany but from all Europe--nay, from the
whole world.
If we could fly some hundreds of miles straight up into